Grey Eyes, Fathers and Family Pride
by Inwitari Turelie
Summary: Two characters struggling with regret meet and dicuss post wrongdoings and their reasons, reflecting on their lives and families, seeing the similarites and differences in their lives. Oneshot


**It was a wet windy day, a grey day, one in which anybody with any sense doesn't go out. It didn't appear to have any effect on the two men sitting on the otherwise empty beach though. They were both dressed in oddly old-fashioned looking clothing. One was very young not yet twenty, the other was older but his age was difficult to guess. Perhaps looking at purely their apparent age you might think them father and son but this seemed unlikely as one had dark raven black hair and the other light, almost white blonde. One thing common to both though was their light grey eyes. The younger's seemed to tell of horrors one of that age had not right seeing. The elder's also held such but also greater sadness and regret as if they had seen all the ages of the world go by. Another peculiarity of the elder's was the light his eyes appeared to hold, they seemed almost to shine. **

"**I followed everything my father taught me hoping that it would finally be enough, that he would be proud of me and I almost became a murderer, no I was one or at least a torturer I mayn't have done it myself but I didn't stop them, hell I helped them do it" the younger one exclaimed.**

"**Well, you actions still rate above my own for I took the step which you did not, and killed for my cause as you did not, ai even my own people in the end and those who were innocent of any wrongdoing against us" replied the elder. I also did it for my father and yet" he gave a bitter laugh "he would not have approved at all of my actions when I finally reached his goal for failed in the end, for when I discovered my actions had caused me to lose my right, I threw the reason for it all into the sea." Here he almost unconsciously looked at his hand which was horrifically scarred as if badly burnt. "It is perhaps out a fear of explaining to my father that I still wander these shores and my soul has not left this world"**

**The blonde looked chastened " well you could say then, that I'm lucky, my father has accepted my failings. It seemed he had to believe me possibly dead to realise he cared for me, not just as an heir but as a person. It was kind of ironic really, it was when I was forced to fight for his ideals that his priorities changed. Before, anything I did wasn't good enough, coming second in the year wasn't good enough, I was beaten and by a mudblood girl as well and that was what mattered"**

"**yea, wanting to please ones father is a powerful motivator, I was always a disappointment to my father while most of my brothers received some at least of his skill at the forge, my talent lay in music, not even a talent normal to the Noldor, his people. Then when the unrest came and he forged the swords here was something I could be as good at as any of my brothers, maybe not my elder brother but better even than the rest"**

"**It wasn't that different for me either I hoped by learning Dark spells and sprouting his propaganda he would be pleased by me. I might have believed many of his prejudices but I wouldn't kill for them, I didn't join because of them, I did it for my family. I thought that by joining the Death Eaters we would have a high standing in the world they were making, we would be the masters. But being in his inner circle was more dangerous then safe really, you always had to make sure you put no foot wrong or you'd go from torturer to tortured and then in the end the always sanctimonious light and the Boy-who-just-won't-die won, all the status and pride of our family that had been built up for centuries died. We're lower then the low, criminals, murderers they call us"**

"**Centuries are not as long as you would think. It was for my family that I did it also, It was loyalty to my father and revenge for my grandfather that truly motivated me. I hoped I could keep the remnants of us together but it was not to be. We left the others behind for we were the people of the firstborn of the king, my father was the true leader of our people. However I realised it early on, when the crown was thrust on my shoulders when my brother was captured that it is a power no one with sense desires. And then when my brother returned I let him abdicate. The Dispossessed was then another title we gained, along with that perennial favourite Kinslayers others called us traitors and murderers but it was much the same. I used to cling to the idea that at least we were fighting against the Dark Lord that we would injure him and never ally with him but them in the end it was our own kindred we killed the most and of all my brothers I am the only one left alive"**

"**At least you can say that, you fought the Dark, I was one of them, one of those people of blackest evil that you would despise, hell that everyone hates and wants to send to have their souls sucked out, I fought out of ideas of pure blood"**

"**Maybe, yet I do not see in you the a soul of pure evil, you are but a child really are you not, even by the count of your race? And were your deeds really worse than mine? Was not our slaying of the that set us on that slippery slope out of some sort of blood pride, would we have done so if we had not looked down on them and their boats as not equal to us? Maybe the saying is right and there are many shades of grey"**

"**humph, well I doubt they will see that, those who are oh-so-perfect just because they didn't fight for **_**him, they just don't understand that our whole upbringing was stacked against us. They see my mother as simply as an evil servant merely unhappy with her lot, they don't see one who tried to hold her husband and sister back, who didn't want me to join, who was thrown into a very different world to the society balls she knew. Even I used to scorn her sometimes"**_

"_**But you still have time don't you. Time to make it up to her, she still lives. I will never still my mother again or at least not til the breaking of the world when my father is reborn"**_

"_**Did she die?"**_

"_**Nay, worse. my brothers and I have cursed her, left her to live in a place we cannot go, one where everyone will look down on her as the mother of kin slayers. She also tried to restrain her husband but she could not and in the end was estranged from him before the end and it was him not her that we followed and now she is alone unless one of my brothers or maybe my nephew has been reborn"**_

"_**Our master gloated that he had found immortality, yet you make it sound a curse"**_

"_**Perhaps it is, death, true death that is was originally meant as a gift for men, immortality is not for them, in the end the powers would not have left him win"**_

"_**Tell that to those who have lost family members" He paused as his eye caught something on the road in the distance "It looks like Astoria's looking for me" Draco said " I tell her she's too good for me, she may be pureblood but her family was mostly neutral in the war, she shouldn't tarnish her reputation being friends with a Death Eater like me"**_

"_**I wouldn't push her away, you'll regret in the end. During my war I well, I suppose you'd say adopted two boys, those children brought something to my life that wasn't there before and it was almost enough to make my forsake my oath and my sons in the end helped save Middle-Earth itself. Don't deny yourself a family"**_

"_**Look, we're just friends ok, nothing more, a few minutes ago you were telling me I was a child make your mind up, look I'd better go, work out some explanation" and with that Draco Malfoy left leaving the other to watch after him.**_

_**He knew the boy was fooling himself, he'd seen such emotions enough times in his life to recognise it and humans did marry early, not so much recently but still… Elrond and Elros hadn't been enough to stop him in his quest for the Silmarils but perhaps it would be enough for Draco. After all it seemed to him that the boy was starting to move on already or at least attempting to whereas he still wandered these shores in regret after millennia, but then perhaps that was part of the difference between human and elven nature, he believed they did not dwell as much in memory. With that thought Maglor son of Feanor slowly faded away ready to manifest himself when next someone on the shore needed someone of a not unblemished past to vent to. He may not sing as he used to, but he still tells their story hoping to stop others from making similar mistakes. **_


End file.
